Alcohol Taxation

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is absolutely right. The study to which he refers took into account the reduced quality of life years associated with alcohol, which are extremely difficult to quantify.

In three years’ time, the Government will be judged not just on the economy, but on other tangible markers, such as violent crime, the prison population, health inequalities—even markers such as teenage pregnancy. It is hard to think of a social marker that is not affected by alcohol.

However, there are other compelling reasons for taking action. At a time of squeezed police budgets and when the NHS needs to find efficiency savings of £20 billion, we should not be pouring that money down the drain because of the problems that this country has with alcohol. About half the offenders in some prisons are jailed for an offence in which alcohol played a significant role. The relationship between crime and alcohol is not linear, but the positive association between violent crime and alcohol is compelling. There is a wealth of evidence to link alcohol price increases and reduced rates of homicide, rape, robbery, assault, motor vehicle theft and domestic violence.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In terms of alcohol price increases having the effect that she has just outlined, does she agree that one easy, fast and effective route that the Government could take to stop underpriced and low-priced alcohol being sold would be to go ahead with duty stamping on beer and wine to ensure that alcohol is sold at the right price and, equally, to save the Government up to £1 billion a year of revenue that is currently lost through the tax being avoided?

[Dr Wollaston]

That is one of the options. I would like to outline an alternative, but I certainly thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Numerous studies around the world have shown public health benefits as a result of price increases and taxation policies, so is it not time for some evidence-based politics? The trouble is that there is no single, simple solution. We know that there are other factors in addition to price: availability, our drinking culture and marketing. Those are all key factors, but today’s debate is about taxation, so I will focus entirely on price, not because the others do not matter, but because they are not within the remit of the Treasury.

It is worth pointing out that most health experts feel that changing pricing is the most effective way of achieving results. I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to the letter in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph signed by 19 organisations. I know that the Treasury is aware of the costs to our economy of dependent drinkers and binge drinking, so I will not ask my hon. Friend to respond in detail on those points. As disposable incomes have fallen, so too has the overall consumption of alcohol, but that comes on the back of decades of steady increases. Alcohol remains about 44% more affordable than it was in 1980.

In 2010, a total of 48.4 billion units of alcohol were sold in the UK. Of those, 31.8 billion units—about two thirds; the great and increasing majority—were sold by the off-trade. The widening gap between the price of on-licence and off-licence alcohol is becoming far more significant and is fuelling the rise in home drinking. Harms are not going down as we might expect as a result of the small fall in overall consumption, because of the low-price deals that are still very widely available in supermarkets, garages and convenience stores pretty much around the clock.